


xxii. do these tacos taste funny to you?

by tempestaurora



Series: the kids aren't alright [whumptober 2020] [22]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Family Dinner, Fluff, Gen, Only Happy Things Here, Teen for language, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27151579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: Five is pretty sure there are parallel universes, and though he's unlikely to ever find out the truth, he's right.There are parallel universes, where everything turned out very, very different.Here is one of them.Here is one where they're happy.
Relationships: Allison & Ben & Diego & Number Five | The Boy & Klaus & Luther & Vanya, Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, The Hargreeves Family
Series: the kids aren't alright [whumptober 2020] [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930186
Comments: 38
Kudos: 171





	xxii. do these tacos taste funny to you?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wearemadeofstardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearemadeofstardust/gifts), [sionnachsSkulk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sionnachsSkulk/gifts).



> if you follow me on tumblr you might know that i've been STRUGGLING with the inspiration deal. i'm doing a masters in writing rn and that coupled with the intensity that is whumptober means that i'm Super Struggling to get all these fics done! but i WANT to. i want to get it finished and i want to post a fic a day, it's just turning out that they might be shorter and easier and maybe not up the same standard as the others. pls bear with 
> 
> secondly: this fic was very hard to write and i put it off all day. but thank you to everyone who commented on the last fic with ideas,,, i have gifted this to those who suggested a family taco meal, even though everyone suggested a different circumstance lmao. pls have ur thinking caps on (or whatever it is teachers said when we were 10), bc i've got to ask for another fic idea at the end of this one lmao
> 
> enjoy! everything here is happy

The Commission, the governing body of time travel, exists outside of the time stream; a pocket dimension with the sole focus of maintaining and repairing the timeline wherever it falters or breaks. Sometimes, Five thinks about this, and summarises that although the Commission are hellbent on this timeline and this timeline alone, the existence of their office building _outside_ the timeline?

Well, that just tells him there are other dimensions. Or, more likely, parallel universes.

And Five, though unlikely he’d ever be able to prove it, is right.

Here is one of those parallel universes.

UNIVERSE 928374

“Do these tacos taste funny to you?” Klaus asked through a mouthful of tortilla and beef and lettuce.

Crammed in beside him at the table, Luther pulled a face. Though he was taller and wider than most, he was average size for a human – an aspect irrelevant to point out unless the reader has knowledge of other universes. Despite his average size, he was still cramped at the table, squeezed in between Klaus and Diego’s wife, heavily pregnant and telling a joke through a mouthful of salsa and, yes, salsa alone.

“They taste fine to me,” Luther replied, taking another bite.

Across the mountain of food and plates on the table, Allison had her daughter Claire on her knee and was helping her keep the taco together, while also trying to listen to Vanya’s long and unwieldy story. Her stories were always like that; running away with themselves as she went on, a bright beacon of laughter and funny endings. Diego had once told her after a forty-five minute story about a road trip to California with her ex (which involved a bear, multiple racoons, and Five appearing in her car at some point in Texas to ask where she hid his toothbrush, which she _insisted_ she did not do – she was right, Klaus had hidden it) that she should stop telling the stories for free and just write a book.

Diego was actually barely at the table, scraping his chair backwards to yell something at Five, who was searching the kitchen for the guacamole Eudora made but forgot amongst everything else.

Five appeared directly behind Diego’s chair in a flash of blue light, making him swear.

“You gotta stop doing that,” Diego said, snatching the bowl of guac.

“But its fun,” Five replied. He started back around the table, to where his empty chair sat beside Ben. The two of them had driven to Luther’s place together. Now they were all thirty – somehow all tall except for Vanya – Five had started his second PhD, and Ben had just finished his first. They taught at the same university, Quantum Physics and Classical History respectively, and the two of them had taken to tweeting only the dumbest things the other did, seeing as they lived in the same apartment building.

Just three days before, Ben had posted a thread about Dr Five Hargreeves, previously known as The Boy, cut his pizza not with a pizza cutter, but with a pair of scissors. _A pair of scissors._

Five had retaliated by taking a photo of Ben’s secret Beanie Baby collection, worth exactly zero dollars, that he hid in the back of his hall closet.

The world found these moments funny; they always liked to see what those old Umbrella Academy superkids were up to, twenty years after the police raid that took Reginald Hargreeves down for child endangerment and conspiracy, and sent them to a group foster home. The world liked knowing that they turned out alright, and Luther appreciated that sentiment.

So did his second family, at the Fire House, because Luther’s work in the New York Fire Department meant they were _always_ getting sent baked goods and gifts.

“Mm, Luther,” Eudora said. “Has your Captain talked to you about the fire down on Key and—”

“Hey, Detective,” Diego interrupted. “I thought we said no shop talk at the dinner table.”

Eudora rolled her eyes. “Sorry, _Detective,_ I didn’t realise we were calling this afront to God—” she gestured at the chaos in front of her “—a dinner table.”

“I swear to God,” Klaus said, “these tacos taste weird.”

“The tacos are fine, Klaus,” Allison replied, talking over Vanya’s story. Allison looked at Eudora. “They’re _really_ good—”

“Oh, thank you, but Diego made them, actually.”

“But Diego can’t cook,” Luther said.

“That explains why they taste weird,” Klaus added.

“They don’t _taste weird_ ,” Diego huffed. He’d smothered his taco in guacamole and took a large bite.

“They’re good,” Vanya agreed. “But now I know _Diego_ made them—”

“Hey—”

Luther snorted and took another bite of his taco. It was honestly fine.

“Diego burns fucking _water_ ,” Five said with his mouth full.

Eudora glared. “Language.”

Five scoffed, choked a little on his food, and then asked, “Who are we censoring ourselves for? Luther? Are his ears too sensitive—”

“Watch yourself,” Luther warned.

Eudora rolled her eyes. “The baby’s two weeks away,” she said, eyeing the whole table. “So we’re all quitting the bad language _now._ You Hargreeves better get a watch on your potty mouths—”

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll never get to see the baby.”

Five looked like he was genuinely considering this trade, then jumped when someone audibly kicked him under the table. “Fuck,” he said, leaning to rub at his shin. “Which one of you assholes did that?”

Everyone suddenly took a deep interest in their food as Klaus, who was sitting with his legs crossed on his chair, and so therefore the only innocent one, started snickering.

“Mom,” Claire said, peering back at Allison. She and Allison had moved back to New York after the divorce with Patrick. The way Allison told it, they’d just fallen out of love, as some couples were prone to doing. “Why do you swear around me but not around the baby?”

Allison smiled ruefully at her daughter. “Because you’re already a lost cause, sweetie. I let Five babysit you once and I came home to find you having learnt at _least_ eight swear words.”

“Some of those were technically the same swears, but in different languages,” Five said through another bite of taco. Five was not allowed to babysit anymore.

“This is why Diego has a _No Fives Allowed_ sign on the nursery door,” Vanya said.

“Shut up, Weather Girl,” Five retorted, though half-hearted.

Luther had actually gifted the photo of Five, with a large red cross through it, at Eudora’s baby shower. Diego had laughed harder than Luther had seen him laugh in a long time.

“Klaus,” Ben said suddenly. “Are you really not gonna eat the taco?”

Klaus had stolen Diego’s bowl of guacamole and was now just eating it straight out of the pot with a spoon. He shrugged, and Ben stole his plate.

“Are you really gonna hog the guac?” Diego sighed.

Klaus shoved a heaping spoonful into his mouth.

“How you’re a functioning adult, I’ll never understand.”

Ben took a bite of Klaus’ taco. “Tastes fine, dude, maybe it’s just you.”

“Oh!” Vanya leant forward. “Is it a ghost?”

“What?”

“A ghost! Remember last year when that ghost of a person allergic to chocolate was hanging around _all the time_ and you started throwing up after eating a cookie? Maybe it’s just that again.”

Klaus blinked a few times. He saw ghosts often, though with age and support he’d gotten better at dispelling them and sending them elsewhere. Occasionally, a few stubborn ghosts insisted on hanging around; following him for days at a time. If they weren’t loud, he barely even noticed them anymore.

The only ghost Klaus regularly had to dispel was his father’s, after he’d died in some dramatic prison escape over a decade before. Every month or so he’d pay Klaus a visit, and every month or so Klaus would banish him before he could get much more than a sentence out.

Now, he looked around. He must’ve seen something because he sighed and asked, “What’s your deal with tacos, dude?” There was a moment of silence as he stared at the sofa, and then rolled his head back to face the others.

“So?” Five asked.

“The ghost’s _vegan._ I’m being haunted by a _vegan._ ”

The Hargreeves siblings started laughing as Klaus sighed heavily and seemed to prepare himself to banish the vegan ghost from their non-vegan dinner.

“Did the veganism help them live longer?” Allison asked. “I’ve been thinking about going vegan myself.”

“Is Diego’s cooking _that bad?_ ” Eudora asked with a grin.

“Let me ask.” Klaus looked back over his shoulder again, then turned back to Allison. “They said veganism didn’t protect them from knife crime, no.”

There was a beat of silence before Five couldn’t help laughing, and the others followed after. Klaus’ hands glowed a brief blue as he banished the ghost, and then started the fight to retrieve his dinner from Ben’s mouth, where he was stuffing it in as quickly as possible to avoid letting Klaus have it back.

Luther laughed, and Five swore excessively, stuck between Klaus and Ben, and Diego recorded the moment on his phone for posterity.

In this universe, the good outweighed the bad. In this universe, April 1st passed with little fanfare other than a harmless prank or two. In this universe, the apocalypse wouldn’t dare interrupt this family’s happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> my housemate cuts his pizza with scissors and it's a crime against humanity i fucking hate it
> 
> in this universe, the reginald got done for child abuse/endangerment and conspiracy a few years after the umbrella academy became a Thing, so people know about these kids and them going to foster care, but it was before five even disappeared - so there's comics and tv shows and lunchboxes, but no sad ending for the family. diego is a detective, luther is in the fire department (as he rightfully should be), allison is still an actress, klaus i thought could do that thing where he summons victims of murders and asks them whodunnit, but i couldn't find a place to slip that in. five and ben are professors and vanya's still a violinist but she might take up writing!
> 
> thank you for reading btw,, i appreciate it a lot and all ur comments really keep me going bc whumptober is NOT EASY lmao
> 
> tomorrow's fic is about luther, i wrote it well over a month ago, but it's one of my favourites of the month, even though i know luther-centric fics don't do great! 
> 
> the fic for the 24th hasn't been written, so PRETTY PLEASE GIVE ME IDEAS FOR THE FOLLOWING PROMPTS: "you're not making any sense" "forced mutism/blindfolded/sensory deprivation" if i use your idea i'll gift the fic to you, THANKS!


End file.
